First of all, thank you to everyone who has played Loving You Fully so far. I'm always nervous about my writing as well as just releasing a game to the general public. The game has received nothing but love which is all I can really ask for. 

Now, I'm a huge fan of Katy133's devlogs so I'm going to take a page right out of her book and talk about the development of Loving You Fully.

The Concept of Love

When the theme for the Valentine's Jam got announced, I knew I wanted to focus on self-love rather than romance. In my opinion, loving yourself is way more important.

I've struggled with self-love for most of my adult life. I don't know how to cope properly or think better of myself. I've also struggled with my own body image: I'm a short (4'10' and a HALF) chubby girl. What guy would love me? However, I knew it wasn't just me who has faced these problems. So many people have, women in particular. Society sets a standard for what you should look like and if you're not that then you're seen as undesirable. This has been instilled in us thanks to advertising and entertainment. So, in an attempt to help myself and others feel better, I wanted to remind everyone that society sucks and no matter what you look like, you're beautiful. 

Creating the Cast

My biggest issue with visual novels and entertainment in general is the lack of representation in their casts. In visual novels, it's rare to see a person of color (POC) or someone who is full-figured/plus-sized. My goal with each game I make is to have meaningful representation; so a character who isn't a stereotype or is more than just someone who is defined by their body type, illness, etc. That's how the cast for Loving You Fully came to be.

MirukiMary, the artist for the game, did a fantastic job at creating each character.  I felt like it was important that if I had black people in my game that I also stay true to the texture and styling of black hair. Honestly, each sketch that Mary came up with was wonderful so it was hard to pick one!

Still, even after some research on my end, I was worried. Would people resonate with Bianca? Thankfully, the reception towards Bianca and the whole cast has been positive so far. Naja, a good acquittance of mine on Twitter, tweeted her playthrough and even wrote about the game. Seeing her so happy about finally feeling like she was represented in a game made me not only happy, but feel accomplished in what I set out to do.

The Future

So,  I really want to explore Bianca and Jasmine more. I want to explore both their lives as they move forward from the events of Loving You Fully. Of course, I have way too much on my plate right now with A Marble's Muse and Winning Hearts: Wrestling Otome.  For now, I'll focus on my current projects and maybe in the future I can expand on the Loving You Fully and its cast.